Have an old appliance with a broken control cable that looks like a bicycle
brake cable except the head part, so I can't replace it with a bike cable.
But is there a way to join two such cables at mid point?

Perhaps I could crimp the cores of the cables. But the crimped portion no
longer fits into the cable shell, I'd need something else to join the
shell...

It is called a Bowdan cable. Some are stiff enough to function in
both push and pull like a lawn mower throttle, some tend to work
one way with spring pressure moving the other like a bicycle
brake. If it needs to stay in the sheath, you will be better off
replacing.
______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




"peter" wrote in message
news:%u9Lg.1972$xh4.1344@trnddc04...
Have an old appliance with a broken control cable that looks
like a bicycle brake cable except the head part, so I can't
replace it with a bike cable. But is there a way to join two
such cables at mid point?

Perhaps I could crimp the cores of the cables. But the crimped
portion no longer fits into the cable shell, I'd need something
else to join the shell...

DanG wrote:
It is called a Bowdan cable. Some are stiff enough to function in
both push and pull like a lawn mower throttle, some tend to work
one way with spring pressure moving the other like a bicycle
brake. If it needs to stay in the sheath, you will be better off
replacing.

I'd agree. If the old part is no longer available, perhaps the end
fitting could be taken from the old one and attached to a new cable.
W/O some idea what the end/function might be it's hard to say anything
more, but a mid-cable splice is unlikely to work well. Unless there's
a return spring in the compression mode of travel, the spliced section
will tend to buckle if there's any force of significance at all
required.

Bicycle cables can be bought by the foot. You can buy the cable and
casing separately. Just take your parts to a bike shop, and see if
they can help you out.

On 5 Sep 2006 07:45:26 -0700, wrote:

Bicycle cables can be bought by the foot. You can buy the cable and
casing separately. Just take your parts to a bike shop, and see if
they can help you out.

You can also check with a hobby shop that caters to the RC model
crowd. They use cables to connect to the plane's control surfaces for
many of the larger models and there are a whole slew of couplings that
allow you to couple cables together and to put what ever end you want
on the cable. You have to know how to solder though.

Of course the coupling has to remain outside the cable housing.

dickm

On Tue, 05 Sep 2006 07:16:11 GMT, "peter" wrote:

Have an old appliance with a broken control cable that looks like a bicycle
brake cable except the head part, so I can't replace it with a bike cable.
But is there a way to join two such cables at mid point?

Perhaps I could crimp the cores of the cables. But the crimped portion no
longer fits into the cable shell, I'd need something else to join the
shell...

I agree that it's hard to tell what you need without knowing more or
better yet seeing more.

However if you mean what I think you do by shells, you don't have to
connect the shells (the tubes?) Look at the gear cable on many or all
3-speed bikes. There is only an outer case on the part from the
control to the frame near the front fork. After that it is just a
cable, with a pulley on the frame below the seat.

If you are only pulling and not pushing, if there is a spring that
pulls it back, if first the cable can't go in a straight line to its
end, you just need a place to mount the far end of the first shell.
From there the cable can go on and be spliced to the start of the
second cable. The second cable probably doesn't need to have a shell
at all. Like on a bicycle, you can use a pully (or a sleeve, part of
the cable shell) to go around corners. Or if the path is still not
straight, you can fashion a bracket to hold the shell for the start of
the second cable, but it doesn't have to connect to the shell of the
first cable. Maybe you can lower the number of corners.

For connecting the cables they have bolts with a slit down the middle
and a nut that clamps on the wires in the slit. I don't know if they
come as small as you would want or not.